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It's a small class of video games that still draw interest or inspire an active community 20 years after their first release — even if we're now 40 years into the era of commercial video games. Games like Doom, the several iterations of Civilization, and the Mario Brothers franchise will probably be around and played in some form many decades hence. The X-COM family of games fits, too, having inspired various spiritual successors since its release in 1994. Now, an anonymous reader writes that the open source (GPL) "OpenXcom 1.0 is finally released, after 5224 commits, 1843 days, and 606 resolved issues since v0.9. 20 years of X-COM — XCOM oldschool lovers enjoy!"

You need a copy of the game to use this. This project is to resolve the difficulty running the original game on modern hardware, fix bugs in the original game, etc.

I've got several copies, the original, a CD re-release over 10 years ago that I could NEVER get to run properly due to speed issues, and it's outright incompatibility with using nvidia graphics cards; and I now own it on steam as well (but it came with Enemy Unknown and I haven't actually tried the steam one yet) -- I did get the re-release version working in DOSbox but it still had its issues etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the steam one has its flakiness as well... a proper modern remake is a good thing.

Difficulty of running the original game? I suppose perhaps they started their project before the age of Dosbox. I mean, you can even buy the original XCom's on Steam these days.

What would be really nice is if they now started improving on the original. And what would just be incredibly awesome is, if they would merge XCom and Terror From the Deep into one game with both assets, land and sea bases... extreme X-Com awesomeness in a single package.

I suppose perhaps they started their project before the age of Dosbox. I mean, you can even buy the original XCom's on Steam these days.

Yeah, I like dosbox as much as the next classic game fan, but you are way off base here. Still all kinds of glitches and stuff that affect lots of people (too fast, too slow, unsteady framerate issues, sound or graphics corruption -- joystick woes (not so much for xcom but lots of other titles); and spending hours teaking dosbox config files to try and resolve them is tiresome.

And as this is moddable, it sets the groundwork for being able to run a version with modern hi resolution graphics instead of dealing with upscalers and antialiasing as your only option to play with a window larger than 2.5".

I bought the version from Steam a year ago to play it again. It runs in DOSbox and they seem to have worked out all the issues because it worked great on modern hardware. It was five bucks. More power to them but I hope they do something make the game better because I don't see the point otherwise since the steam version is just like playing back in the day.

You mean something like no more Groundhog Day bug, native multiplatform support, mod support, tons of bugfixes, a replacable soundtrack (with Amiga and PSX and Cydonia's fall, oh my!), three-dimensional explosions, no more Groundhog Day bug, all sorts of XcomUtil-type fixes/mods optionally available, TFTD-style battlescape controls (like being able to open doors without walking through them), strafing, radar ranges displayed on the geoscape, Apocalypse-style persistent soldier equipment, no more Groundhog D

I personally didn't care for any of the sequels that followed XCOM/XCOM:TFTD - none of them seemed to capture that sublime perfection that is the gameplay of the original, most seemed like cash-ins on the IP. So, I was very surprised to find that the current Firaxis title was actually surprisingly, surprisingly good. I learned that recreating the original game in the engine they built was their first step in creating the new title, and clearly it was created with love. So, I say this for any fans who may have been like me, and avoided the titles strictly because historically the sequels stunk to high heaven.

Having said that, it still doesn't completely scratch that itch that only a game of nice, classic Xcom. Dosbox has always been an option of course, but Xcom has bugs, and while using "XcomUtil" (http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=XcomUtil) can fix many of these problems, the work of the OpenXCOM to give us such a wonderful, expandable, moddable version of such a giant of PC gaming is simply astounding. As I read over the documentation, I can't wait to give this a shot. Really want to thank these guys for such a wonderful job - my memories of the summer of 94 and this game are very fond indeed.

Excuse me? You mean the whole set of bugs that the fans had to fix because it was embarassingly broken? Or the horrible AI which you could play around however you wanted once you reached a certain tech level? Or the horrific behaviour of rockets/grenades which were essentially 2D? Or the destructible walls which would not collapse floating floors on you? etc, etc. Or maybe you mean the tedious boring unbalanced ending part of each game where you are fo

I like it, but again, it's more action oriented and less strategy. Unless you tell me that strategy is having a super soldier unable to carry more than one grenade per mission...

I agree, the changes to streamline things are significantly different - skill trees, and the restrictive inventory system for example. But... playing within the confines of that is still lots of strategy and tactics.

Depends on the game you're playing. In original UFO/X-Com, I would sometimes fight a scout craft (the kind that's all one room inside) early in the game and all of the aliens would be in the ship. They would (intelligently) refuse to come out, and if I sent someone in, they would snap-shot him for an instant kill. So I made a hard choice to load up a rookie with a high-explosive charge set to 0 seconds, and ran him in next to the power source. As expected, the aliens killed him. But the explosive neutr

That's also the argument of this paper (PDF) [fdg2014.org] comparing them, though it does also concede that the new game somewhat reduces tension and difficulty in order to accommodate a streamlined UX that players expect from modern titles.

The two biggest changes to the feel imo are: 1) scrapping of the whole time-unit system; and 2) much less in the way of ambushes because the line-of-sight visibility mechanic was replaced by a much broader visibility field.

Also, the recent fireaxis xcom is nothing like the original. I like it, but again, it's more action oriented and less strategy. Unless you tell me that strategy is having a super soldier unable to carry more than one grenade per mission...

You know, in reality we'd probably have a bit more than half a dozen soldiers to fight off an alien invasion. UFO Defense was a lot more about tedium and logistics than actual strategy, okay the soldiers need bullets for their guns but I need to restock them between each mission or they'll forget to bring ammo? That's not the kind of micromanagement I'd like to be doing between researching alien tech, building new and unique equipment and facilities while staving off an alien invasion. I consider the chance

I tried Firaxis's XCOM as soon as I could, seeking the flexibility of the first two games; the devilish plays you could pull when in a tight spot (prime alien grenade - toss at buddy - buddy picks it up - buddy lobs at alien), shooting or running as your speed (TUs per turn) allowed, switching equipment on the field, breaching walls for your teammates... all were fond memories worthy of revisiting with a modern engine.

The first cinematic of the landing scene gave me a huge grin, and it was mostly disappoint

I tried Firaxis's XCOM as soon as I could, seeking the flexibility of the first two games; the devilish plays you could pull when in a tight spot (prime alien grenade - toss at buddy - buddy picks it up - buddy lobs at alien), shooting or running as your speed (TUs per turn) allowed, switching equipment on the field, breaching walls for your teammates... all were fond memories worthy of revisiting with a modern engine.

The first cinematic of the landing scene gave me a huge grin, and it was mostly disappointing from then on. Its walk-shoot-shoot; you die with the gear you brought; you can't shoot at walls because they've done nothing to you. I played four missions and didn't get to experiment with classes or see whether you could ever learn Mind Control.

My hopes are now on UFO: Alien Invasion. Bit rough around the edges but coming along nicely. If you share my feelings, give it a go.

Agree with you on all points, and I will add one game-breaker I gleaned after completing the game a few times, for all the great promise of the new XCom game, this is the killer that made me stop playing it -- the AI cheats.

That's right, it cheats. Not in the strategy game purest sense of cheating like it knows the position and gears of my team before they can see them (it does), but in the much more serious way as teleporting its units, literally, behind your back. So you can have your units partition th

Reminds me of the old Carrier Command game. Due to rushed development, the AI code was never fully finished - it was thick as two short planks. To compensate for these weaknesses, it was given certain advantages that made the game very unfair.

eg, the AI was never given pathfinding code - so it couldn't navigate around an island. The solution was to just let it drive over land too - thus allowing it to take a straight line between any two points. The manual lampshaded this by declaring it was a hover-carrier

To be fair, some behavio(u)rs of the original game were less than reasonable, to the point that taking advantage of them felt like an exploit. One of these was "collective sight", which meant that if anyone on your side (even a controlled alien) can see someone, everyone can target it. You could do the Cydonia mission without leaving the craft by spotting one alien and chain-controlling as many as needed to reach the hive-brain. Others were: stuffing someone (dead/unconscious) in your "backpack" and only su

The Firaxis reboot was good, but with the EW expansion it is amazing, probably the best turn based tactical game of all time. They hit the right balance of simplicity of mechanics and complexity of strategy, kept everything nice and balanced, gave you a lot of different valid strategy options and so on.

I've been extremely pleased with it and spent a shit ton of time playing it.

Another release is that of Xenonauts [xenonauts.com], to be finally released next week. I think it's a must-have for fans of the classic XCom. Xenonauts is a modernized remake, but it keeps the same fundamental game mechanics (unlike the Firaxis version). Time units, multiple bases, great freedom in soldier inventory and other things from the original, and there's a huge amount of balancing and subtle improvements. I have played several indie and small-studio successors, such as UFO: Aftermath, UFO: Extraterrestrials, and UFO: Alien Invasion, but none of those have, in my opinion, captured the original's feeling, while Xenonauts managed to.

I'm pretty curious how Xenonauts turned out. I bought it during the early stages of development (back when it was more "crowdfunding" than "early access") and the last version I played was an alpha where the game would crash if your soldiers tried to pick up alien guns. I remember the ground combat being good but the interception minigame being pretty annoying.

It's nice to see that there's still people interested in the *original* XCOM games - and not the utter junk that's been released since TFTD.

Some 13 years ago (wow, time flies), I was delighted to see a Windows re-release of the XCOM games (the "Collectors Edition"), since the DOS version was indeed pretty troublesome to get running under Windows - this was before the luxury of DOSBox. However, the fine developers who did the port didn't know the difference between "pitch" and "width", and thus it was unplayable (on a wide range of graphics cards, apparently). I was put down by this, but my friend who was visiting that evening said "well, you usually fix... bugs... in programs, so can't you fix this?".

One frantic night of reverse engineering and beer-drinking and reminiscing about chryssalids and tentaculats laters, I had a bugfix loader running. XCOM once again! The CE port in general wasn't perfect, the XCOM1 intro only had MIDI music but not the muton screams and other sound effects, there were stall-for-a-second issues when changing soundtrack on many soundcards, et cetera.

When XCOM1+2 were re-released on STEAM, they initially used my bugfix loaders (I'm told they use DOSBox nowadays - that's a more authentic experience). Didn't even contact me about it. When I reached out to the people in charge (took a while, the rights to the brand had been shifted around quite a bit), I was told that the source code no longer existed - apparently, at the end of days, it had existed on a single laptop that had been stolen or destroyed or whatever.

So, with the above in mind, it's nice to see that people are trying to re-create the legacy of one of the best games I've ever spent countless hours with.

Apoc wasn't that bad. It was flawed but still enjoyable, although I think that some of the cut content would've made it even better (like tracking down people to uncover alien infiltration attempts). The premise was silly but I do like the gameplay. Plus, there were these sublime moments like when you realized that your desperate tactic of throwing swarms of hoverbikes at the UFOs was actually pretty effective. Overall it might not have been quite as good as the first one but it was still good.